Folks,
It ain't the NRA, it ain't the candidates on the Right, but rather to quote Pogo--we have met the enemy and he is us. A significant portion of the population believes that the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the rule of law hinders their pursuit of utopia and so it must go. There really is not a middle ground to retreat to if you believe in the Constitution and its protection of individual rights.
There is a concerted effort by a significant portion of the population fully supported by the media, political insiders, and wealthy oligarchs that is not only going after the 2A, but also religious freedom of conscience, the rights of the accused (see Title IX tribunals), privacy, property rights, the 1A (hate speech defined broadly will effectively end most political discussions on sensitive subjects--see heckler's veto), free and fair elections, education that is not indoctrination, and personal safety for those that disagree via mob action.
It is a package deal from that thing called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Its job is to protect an organic civil society not based on government permission to exist. Those opposing it reject the idea of individual rights and instead argue for the rights of identity groups with some groups based on "victim" status being more privileged than others because of real or perceived injustices of the past. This justifies in their mind the overthrow of the Constitution because they seek vengeance on the Founders and their posterity.
I can point to surveys indicating significant support and often majority support btw for all of these propositions limiting most Bill of Rights protections depending on question wording. That exit poll btw also indicated that only 8 percent of the population thinks that it is the most important issue for stricter gun laws. The problem is the coalition of folks that want to limit each and every right might very well be a majority if they vote together as a bloc.
I have seen people all too commonly willing to support taking away group/individual X's rights because they are a "bad person--bad group, etc." instead of an individual actions.
It is a pattern and far too many people are willing to turn their heads away because they want something from government that meanies on the other side won't give them (money, privileges under the law, "free" health care, dope, "free housing", "free birth control", revenge, political prosecutions, etc.) so they become silent allies of this element taking away rights.
To make themselves feel better, they allege that a few isolated anecdotes of the other side's misbehavior justifies what they want thus the mote in that side's eyes justifies the beam in their side's. This false equivalence was used quite often by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, as bad as the West was, you rarely saw people trying emigrate to the paradise of East Germany. Instead, people risked their lives and freedom to escape such places.
Here is the thing, once the rule of law goes, NO ONE is safe--politically, socially, and economically. Political contests will no longer be over issues but survival for self and loved ones and history is replete with tales of disaster when this happens. As Hobbes says, "life is short, brutish, and nasty" when these things happen. In any society, there are a lot of people who hold grudges for their misfortunes and feel victimized by a society and its rules. Often, their vengeance is not really sought for their misfortunes but from those of others in their "tribe" and they view the political system as a way to make their perceived tribal enemies pay in the coin of humiliation and oppression.
The Venezuelan Constitution has many fine guarantees of rights as did the Soviet Union's Constitution did before it. Over time, Venezuelan society traded its future away for promised fools gold and allowed bit by bit for their rights to be taken from them. Now one of the richest countries in the world during the 1960's and 1970's has been destroyed by class envy, hatred, crime, and economic desperation.
The doublespeak of the fine words that "Love conquers Hate" or "Tolerance" etc. conveniently ignores the idea of those who must be crushed under the treads of tanks to get to that Utopia. Because those un people deny the Roussean community's values, they must be destroyed, expelled, or subjugated.
One slender reed that introduces doubt in the success of this project is the 2A. Without it, the word citizens will be replaced by subjects, and subjects get whatever scraps of rights that the sovereign feels generous enough to grant them until all hell breaks loose or the government collapses such as the Soviet Union did.
